One
student's crusade to change derogatory cataloging in
California libraries

An
energetic Stanford student from the Bay Area wants
the cataloging abbreviation, “JAP,” to
disappear from California’s libraries. When
Christine Hironaka, a 2005 alumnus of Piedmont
High School, met State Librarian Susan Hildreth at
the California Civil Liberties Public Education
Program conference last June, Hironaka explained
that she had discovered a problem, what Hironaka
calls “the J word,” in her alma mater’s
library.

Hironaka
found three books, Japan (952), Japanese
American History (973.0495), Japanese
American Internment Camps (973.095), all
without designated authors, with the call symbol
“JAP,” a term that has, Hironaka says,
“stirred-up hatred” against Japanese and
Japanese Americans since World War II.
Hironaka’s family knows that fact all too well.
Three of Hironaka’s grandparents were
incarcerated in Japanese internment camps while,
ironically, her other grandfather fought for the
United States as a member of 442nd Regiment, a
highly decorated Japanese American combat unit.

While
she knew that the call letters were just a
technical abbreviation, Hironaka sought a
cataloging alternative.

She
found it.

At
the Oakland Public Library Hironaka learned that
Oakland catalogs books (with no designated author)
about Japan as “Japanese” or “Japan.” Japanese
Americans- From Relocation to Redress, for
example, is catalogued as “Japanese” in
Oakland’s collection. Hironaka also discussed
the challenge with Piedmont Middle School
Librarian Randi Voorhies who suggested using the
editor’s name.

Both
of these options, Hironaka suggests, would be a
good idea for all books about Japan without a
designated author.

Hironaka
asked Hildreth to “openly address the practice
of using ‘the J word’ in our school and public
libraries.” Hildreth says, “Christine has done
a great job finding alternatives for this
cataloging abbreviation. If our libraries are
aware of this problem, they might find the options
that Christine found useful.”